Denny Kline settles in to new role with Gleason

Friday

Jan 11, 2013 at 3:19 PMJan 11, 2013 at 3:27 PM

Four days into the new job, the office walls are still mostly barren and scattered paperwork covers the desk as Denny Kline settles in as the Ridgecrest field representative for Kern County’s new first district supervisor settles into his duties.In those four day, he’s traveled to Bakersfield, to Lake Isabella to meet with his Kern River Valley counterpart Pat Connell as they spoke to former First District Supervisor Jon McQuiston and his chief of staff. Then he’s back in Ridgecrest.

By Jack Barnwelljbarnwell@ridgecrestca.com

“My first week here has been an absolute zoo,” Kline said with a chuckle. “I think every time I’ve moved into a new office, you’ve got a day or two of ‘we’ll leave the new guy alone’ so he can unpack his boxes.”Kline’s background in public affairs and as a consultant are likely to pay huge dividends for the area.Kline has been in and out of both corporate and government positions, including a stint as a civil servant at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at different points in time, and as external affairs director for Boeing in St. Louis. He’s also served as NAWCWD’s chief of corporate relations and more recently as a consultant for MIL Corporation before coming to his current post.And like Gleason, he is a Navy man, having served from 1959 to 1962 before going into a career as a technical writer.“When Mick decided to run for supervisor, I jumped on his bandwagon,” Kline said. “I was excited that he had all the credentials one could ever look for in that position.”Kline said following the election, he and Gleason sat down — in retrospect what he called a job interview.“We sat down to make sure that we were philosophically the same,” he said.Kline said Gleason had a strong set of principles and was unwavering.“I do not think for a moment he would consider hiring anyone on his staff who wasn’t fairly middle-of-the-road but dedicated to a sense of principles,” Kline said.He said those principles include Gleason’s decision to charge forward in stamping out meth use and growing the area’s economic base.“He would like to broaden the economic base to do more to attract small businesses and keep East Kern growing,” Kline said.Kline said his job was to act as a conduit for Gleason, much as the other field representatives do, and convey the peoples’ concerns to the county supervisor.“Mick’s biggest priority is perhaps to be accessible, so my priority is to be a conduit,” he said. Kline described his new role as a challenge, as it was different than any office he has been in before.Part of that job, he said, was an ability to listen, something Kline seems up to task.Gleason’s approach to appointing representatives in Eastern Kern differs from his predecessor Jon McQuiston. Where McQuiston had one full-time person covering both Ridgecrest and Kern River Valley, Gleason has brought in two part-time people to cover the large territory.Kline said that if either himself or Pat Connell were ever swamped with work, they would come in as backup to help.Kline, having seen Ridgecrest when it was an unincorporated town in 1963, said the Ridgecrest of today was a bonus.“I absolutely love the small town aspects of the place,” Kline said. “I love how it politically presents itself.”A big benefit was the relative safety of the town, despite slight increases in crime rate in recent years. He said his daughter and her family had moved to Ridgecrest from Los Angeles.Kline said much of his recreational time, like many people who have kids and grandkids in the neighborhood, is spent around family and proudly mentioned his grandson —Burroughs High’s Jackson French — would be playing in a all-star football game in Adelanto.“There are a lot of people who live here and stay here because this is a great town to raise a family,” he said. “And if you care about family values — and most of us do — why not Ridgecrest?”